The workbook
59 pages of explanation, examples and fillable worksheets, including purpose planning, cash timing, hardship, twenty-year scenarios and a decision record.
FOR THE BROTHER PREPARING A DUES PROPOSAL
What Should Our Lodge Dues Be?
Bring a proposal the brethren can examine.
Start with what you want the lodge to provide. Put its costs, other income and expected collections on paper. Then test the rate you’re considering, with the reasoning where everyone can see it.
$12 USD · One-time digital download · No subscription
59-page fillable workbook, 16 planning-sheet pages and a separate offline calculator for a desktop browser. Gumroad shows the final currency and applicable tax at checkout.
Somebody has to explain the number.
What does the lodge cost to operate? What should it offer its members? Which expenses belong to the building? How much of the dues billed is likely to arrive?
This workbook helps you work through those questions before the discussion becomes everyone defending the figure they arrived with. You might be an officer, a committee member or the brother who agreed to do the preparation.
You bring the records and judgment. The workbook supplies a process, a fictional worked example and matching sheets for recording the work.
From the purpose to the proposal.
- Name the work. Describe the lodge experience you intend to support, then compare the scope of the plans.
- Gather the evidence. Separate lodge and property costs, record dependable other income and keep unknowns visible.
- Test the proposed rate. Account for authorized billing exclusions and expected collections. Check the proposed bill against the funding requirement.
- Check what the annual total misses. Work through cash timing, hardship, accepted work and local governing requirements.
- Keep the reasoning. Record the decision and assumptions so the next officers have somewhere to begin.
SEE THE ACTUAL WORK
A completed example beside a blank sheet.
Cedar Lodge is fictional. Its example shows how costs are separated and documented. The blank W1 sheet shows the information your own lodge would gather. These are preview images; the purchased PDF has fillable fields.
What your $12 buys.
The planning sheets
16 fillable pages collected separately, so you can keep a working set beside the explanations or print them for the table.
The calculator
A separate HTML file for a desktop browser. It works offline and lets you save and reopen a working-data file.
The PDF fields accept entries; they do not calculate. Unzip the download and use the separate calculator for arithmetic. Keep the saved data file with your supporting records.
Start with one useful pass.
For a first reading, open the Cedar Lodge example on printed page 19 beside W1 on page 20. Gather your own records and note what is missing. You do not need to fill every sheet before you understand where to begin.
If the meeting is close and you only need a first funding estimate, the free Price the Lodge worksheet may be enough for today. Its three pages cover costs, income, billings and expected collections, a rate check and the questions still to resolve. Enter $0 on Gumroad; email is required for delivery.
The full workbook develops the proposal further. Neither the free sheet nor an annual surplus replaces the cash-timing, hardship, work and governing-rule checks needed before a final decision.
A few questions before you decide.
Does this assume our dues must go up?
No universal rate fits every lodge. Test the amount against the work you intend to fund and your own figures. The decision stays with the brethren.
Is this specific to Michigan?
The guide is independent and uses a fictional lodge example. Verify your own governing rules, permissions and approval process. It is not a Grand Lodge program.
Can I do everything on my phone?
You can inspect these sample pages on a phone. Plan to use a desktop or laptop browser for the offline calculator. The package includes PDFs and a separate calculator, delivered together in a ZIP.
Can the lodge print the forms?
A lodge that owns the guide may reproduce its forms for its own lodge use. For distribution of the complete paid guides to multiple readers, ask Rob.
What if we already have a sound process?
You may not need this workbook. Read the sample and compare it with the work you already do. The guide is useful when its organized process and records help with a real task.
Are the twenty-year figures predictions?
No. They are scenarios that show how chosen assumptions affect future figures. They do not predict your lodge’s membership, costs or decisions.
Do I have to subscribe?
No. This is a one-time purchase. Worksheet delivery and the Square Thoughts essays are separate; choose the essay subscription only if you want it.
From one working brother to another.
I’m Rob Linn, Secretary and a Past Master of Bethel Lodge No. 358 in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. The dues and listening guides grew out of our lodge work.
I write the Square Thoughts essays. Brotherhood of Purpose is where my practical lodge guides live. Bosley Press is my publishing imprint.
Your lodge has its own circumstances. Use the examples to understand the method, then bring your own figures and questions.
Is this the job in front of you?
Read the sample, check the format and choose the workbook if it would help you prepare the discussion.
Second edition · Revision 2.2 · Digital package $12 USDSeveral jobs to tackle? The four-guide set is $19 USD and includes this package, Call Every Brother, Let Him Talk and Photograph the Minute Books. You do not need to buy its individual guides too.
Prepare the discussion together.
The package also includes a four-page facilitator companion: a 75-minute sample workshop using fictional Cedar Lodge figures and a separate 45-minute dues working-meeting agenda. Spoken prompts, exercises and follow-through help you practise the calculation before preparing your own proposal.
Already have the guide? Open the matching reader companions.